Where They Came From, How They Settled Down and the Place They Worshiped In
The accumulated evidence from recent excavations at Miqne and other sites and current research on the material culture of the Philistines and other Sea Peoples make the time ripe for a reassessment of the initial appearance and settlement in Canaan of this enigmatic people. Critical to any such reassessment is the understanding that cultural change during the transitional period from the Late Bronze Age to early Iron Age I was not uniform or simultaneous throughout the country. Rather, this period was characterized by a complex process in which indigenous Canaanite, as well as Egyptian, Philistine and Israelite cultures at times overlapped. Several recent articles dealing with the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age in Canaan are based predominantly on the assumption that cultural change in the period was both uniform and simultaneous. This conclusion distorts the true nature of this transitional period.
This transitional period in Philistia can be better understood in light of the recent excavations at Tel Miqne-Ekron.
Read the rest of Ekron of the Philistines, Part I in the online Biblical Archaeology Society Library.